


Untidy Souls

by simplifiedemotions



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Head Boy Draco Malfoy, Head Girl Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger is So Done, One-Shot, POV Draco Malfoy, Past Relationship(s), Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:21:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24950746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplifiedemotions/pseuds/simplifiedemotions
Summary: “We all had impossible—”“To be good is a privilege, Granger! I didn’t have the benefit of the Order behind me when my flesh was carved.” He could still feel the fire in his nerves, just as he'd felt when the dark mark was etched into his skin.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 42
Kudos: 287
Collections: Dramione Height Difference  2020





	Untidy Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first ever attempt at writing a story, and I thought a fest dedicated to my own love of all things tol/smol would be a good starting point. I would classify this story as angst but that would all depend on if I made you sad. 
> 
> Endless thanks to Jamethiel for beta'ing this work. She had to endure my repetitive comma splices :)
> 
> If you wanna follow me on tumblr: simplifiedemotion.tumblr.com

September 1st, 1998

“Get your hair out of my fucking face, Granger—” 

“You were the one who fell into me—”

Draco sneered at her. “It’s not my problem that you keep your head buried in a book all day. Watch where you’re going”, he said. 

She shifted away from him with her arms defensively crossed over her chest. He sputtered at the sensation of her hair being drawn across his lips.

Granger huffed, and she lifted her nose in the air as if it could give her height alone. The top of her head still only reached his collarbone. “Whatever, Malfoy,” she said, turning sharply on her heel and towards the dungeons. He stared in her direction longer than he should have before sighing and turning to go towards his Transfiguration class.

Granger never could keep her expressions closed. He thought back to sixth year potions when her face was far past crimson and her brows furrowed deeply; he was worried the lines they etched would be permanent.

Now he had to contend with her haughty tone and unruly hair all of eighth year, even in their damn shared dorm as heads.

It still... hurt to look at her. 

December 1996

Draco found her standing on a small stool in the potions cupboard. Her back was turned while she reached for Ashwinder eggs on the top shelf during their Potions class with Slughorn.

He stepped towards her in the small dimly lit room and wrapped his arms around her waist, her bushy hair tickling his cheek as he leaned towards her. He didn't have to bend down quite so far.

She froze before Draco pushed her hair over her to one side and murmured hello in a husky voice, and she gave a breathy sigh in return.

“Potter’s cheating again”, he said into her neck as he nipped the spot below her ear that always made her shiver.

“I know. And here I thought you'd be looking at me instead.” Granger said softly, but Draco could feel her smiling. 

“So you were staring at me then?" he said in a teasing tone as he started kissing a soft path down her jaw.

Granger turned in his arms and scowled, a blush rising up from her chest where two buttons of her shirt were open.

Before she could protest, he claimed her lips while wrapping his arms tighter around her, lifting her from the stool and setting her down before guiding them to the wall beside the ingredients and extra empty vials. He pressed her into the stone wall while he ravaged her mouth, drawing out a shaky breath as she kissed him back.

Keeping one arm wrapped around her waist, Draco’s fingers brushed the length of her arm, featherlight touches up to her shoulder before he twined his fingers into her curls. 

“Draco, someone could see,” but she was clinging to him, winding her arms around his neck as she pulled him closer.

“No one will see—”, he said against her lips, and as if Merlin himself was trying to thwart him, Slughorn’s voice sounded out from behind the door.

The two of them sprang away from each other as Slughorn opened the door. Draco almost toppled the entire shelf as his back hit the edge and rattled the vials above him.

“Miss Granger, are you having difficulty locating the Ashwinder eggs?” Slughorn enquired unctuously. “Oh, Mr. Malfoy? What are you doing in here?”

"I needed more powdered moonstone, Sir,” Draco lied smoothly, collecting himself and fixing and smoothing his hair where he knew Granger had pulled on it.

He could see Granger from the corner of his eye getting back on the stool and reaching for the eggs again. 

“Oh very good, my dear boy. Back to your stations then." Slughorn walked away from them, hands planted on both hips as if his feet alone couldn’t hold him up.

Granger walked past him, glaring furiously and blushing scarlet. It was so obvious that Potter and Weasley actually noticed and started prattling on about going to the infirmary to get herself checked. She ignored them, and Draco could feel her glare at him.

Draco kept a cool face. He found it disconcerting to watch someone so small be so open in her emotions. It was positively unhygienic the way she cast severe glares at everyone, and how she brushed her hair back as she pursed her lips.

Later, when he was tugging her behind a portrait while she yelled about hexing him if he ever pulled something like that in class again, he was sure he could spend a lifetime learning all the expressions that crossed her face.

Present - Sept 1998

Draco arrived to class two minutes late, receiving a lecture about tardiness on the first day by the new Transfiguration professor; a burly man named Asholt whose first name he didn’t care to remember. He sat in the only open seat near the back of class next to a shaky Hufflepuff seventh year, who moved his seat as far from Draco as he could without using air as something to write on. 

Draco thought it rather amusing that he should be the one being moved away from when the Hufflepuff cologne-du-jour smelled of a mixture of overcooked cabbage and something else that was overly pungent and sweet. 

While breathing in the fumes of what Draco now would describe as Polyjuice potion marked as perfume, he heard the sneers of other seventh years around him who were discontent with having a known Death Eater in their class. He supposed he should have been insulted by the rather paltry barbs, but it really didn't seem to matter.

Their last year didn’t involve having to contend with a dark figure with red slits for eyes and an aunt who crucioed him until his nerve endings felt torn apart.

After Transfiguration, Draco made his way to the third floor for Defense Against the Dark Arts.  
When he arrived, he saw Potter sitting beside Granger as he regaled her with the new season of Quidditch while she regarded Potter with absent interest.

She looked distracted, and her eyes were downcast as she twirled a long curl with her index finger.

When Potter spotted Draco, he gave him an awkward nod. Draco stared at him blankly.

Ever since Draco hadn’t identified Potter at the manor, and Potter had testified for Draco’s mother at her Wizengamot trial, there was a tentative truce between them. Weasley had opted to run Wizarding Wheezes with the remaining twin, so only two of the trio returned for eighth year.

Granger looked up after noticing Potter had stopped speaking and peered at Draco for a split second before averting her eyes, turning her body fully to the front of class.

He sneered at her back but took a seat at the table behind them where Blaise was sitting and looking at Draco with an amused expression.

“Blaise.” Draco nodded towards Blaise, taking off his school bag and rummaging for a quill and ink and parchment. 

He wondered if Granger still sucked on a sugar quill while taking notes. 

“So you two are still playing this game, then?” Blaise arched a condescending eyebrow, but there was humour in his dark eyes.

Draco glared at Blaise, firmly ignoring him.

In sixth year, Blaise had found him pressing Granger to a shelf in the library, just as Draco was trying to convince her that no one came to the Muggle section while unlatching her bra under her shirt. When he spotted Blaise, he ripped himself away from her, and Granger grabbed a random book to look through.

Draco had been terrified that his house mate would tell others what he saw, but he merely smirked at them and told Granger that he just happened to be looking for the same Charlotte Brontë book she was holding. She blushed fiercely and told him in a rather adorable squeaky voice that he could have it.

As she handed it to him, he looked over at them again, a devilish expression in his eyes. Blaise said nothing else, but he nodded to Draco who was looking at Blaise with a nervous twitch. Blaise met his gaze calmly, in a way that told Draco that he would keep his secret.

He remembered Granger being amused when informing him that not all Purebloods were complete prats and could read non-wizarding books. He assured her later that night in an empty classroom that he did actually read Muggle literature, kissing down her body as she lay on a rickety desk. He murmured a Brontë quote to prove his point: “I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward,” enunciating the word upward as his mouth reached the apex of her thighs.

A hard poke to his elbow brought him back, and he glared at Blaise before he noticed the whole class was staring at him. He wondered why until he realized the professor had asked him a question.

Draco cleared his throat and looked at their DADA professor. Alec Burton—a former Auror he recognized from when he was arrested along with his mother and father at the manor at the beginning of summer—was glaring at him. “I apologize, professor. What was the question?”

The former Auror gave Draco a tight, insincere smile before saying, “We are speaking today about the use of Unforgivables in the war. I thought I would ask a student who was intimately familiar with them. How fortunate that we have you then, isn’t it, Mr. Malfoy?” 

Draco went cold, but before he could snipe back, he heard Granger’s voice.

“Professor, I’m not sure why you think you have any right to speak to a student that way, but I must assure you that you do in fact, not. Or would you prefer it if we discussed your blatant disregard for student welfare with Headmistress McGonagall?” He couldn’t see her face, but her supercilious voice was enough to make him glare at the back of her head.

No one dared question the golden girl, and Burton muttered something under his breath before resuming his lecture. Funnily enough, the lecture was about the traumatic stress accompanied with using the imperius on unsuspecting people.

Draco clenched his fists so hard his quill broke, but he was too livid to reach for another in his bag.

He wanted to confront her after class, but it seemed she sensed this because as soon as the professor dismissed class, she told Potter she had to stop by the owlery and would see him at dinner.

She was lying, of course, which is why he headed towards the library to find her.

Draco found her in the history section, standing on her tiptoes and stretching to reach for an older edition of Hogwarts: a History. It wasn’t even on the top shelf, but she was so small that she still had to crane her neck, and oh did she just try to jump to reach it? 

“Need help Granger?” Draco asked. Tension radiated out through his spine, and he clenched his jaw.

She visibly stiffened but didn’t turn towards him. “No thank you, I can do it myself.”

He scoffed. “Funny, I could say the same to you when your bleeding Gryffindor heart decides to interfere in things that have nothing to do with you.”

She looked over at him sharply. “I’m not apologising for defending you. He had no right to say that.” 

“You had no right!” His fists were clenched, and he realized that he was yelling. Every time he spoke with her, he wanted to kill her. Or kiss her.

“Spare me your dramatics, Draco.” She winced when she said his name. It was as if she was testing poison on her tongue. “If I want to defend you then I’m going to defend you; you’re not my keeper.” As she said this she reached on the tips of her toes to reach for the book again.

“And I’m not your pity project! Keep your stupid Gryffindor martyrdom away from my life. Also, you do realize you own a wand right? Levitate the damn book off the shelf.”

She kept struggling to reach. “I don’t have a wand.”

He hesitated. “What, why?”

She froze. “None of your business,” she said, clenching the hand not reaching for the book into a fist and thinning her lips.

Draco narrowed his eyes at her. “Granger.”

She ignored him, and he could see that she was getting visibly frustrated—if the way her brows furrowed and the way she was biting her lip raw was any indication. He looked at her hands and realized they were shaking.

Cruciatus phantom pains.

Draco sighed resignedly, wanting to walk away from her, but he never was good at leaving the way she was. He walked right behind her, feeling the warmth of her back against his chest. He reached for the book, brushing the trembling of her hand against his. She put her hand down beside her but didn’t move away from him.

He grabbed the book, and when she turned to face him, she took it from his hand and tucked it into the curve of her elbow. Though she avoided his gaze, he took in the flush across her cheeks.

“Granger,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “What happened to your wand?”

She still avoided his eyes as if the truth in her brown eyes would reflect in his slate grey. “It’s nothing. I’ll be getting a new one this week. A lot of people lost their wands during the war so Ollivander’s has been backed up for orders.”

Draco pressed closer to her and took hold of her chin, making her look up at him. She started, but he kept a firm hold.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Draco...”

She hesitated, looking down again, but he lifted her chin back up. She should never have to look down to anybody.

Granger hesitated for several seconds before she started to speak. “After—" She inhaled sharply. “After the manor, my wand was acting up. The dragon string core wasn’t channeling my magic properly, and it kept shooting off random spurts of magic whenever I held it.”

His eyebrow arched. “And you believe a new wand would help with that?” 

“Well, yes.” She said, flushing. “When I was visiting Neville at the hospital while he was recovering from the final battle, I spoke with a St. Mungo's healer about the incidents I was having. She theorised that I might have developed post-traumatic stress and channeled it through my wand while the war was still going on. So, I decided to get a new one with a different core. Heartstring actually.”

Draco grunted. “And your hands? Are you just going to ignore the obvious trembling that even a bumbling idiot like Weasley would notice?”

"It’s fine." She shook. “I- I’m fine.” They’re just phantom shakes, I already got treated for the tremors. Once they stop shaking, I won’t have any problems using my new wand”.

Draco’s eyes widened, waiting for her to continue while he willed himself not to shake out her stupid Gryffindor stubborness. 

She looked at him with watery eyes. “It’s okay”, she said again as if she was trying to convince herself and not him. "I can get by with no wand for now. I’ve already spoken to my prof—”

“Shut up.” His hand moved to her neck, and he palmed her throat lightly, but he still felt her breath catch. “Why do you always insist that you can do things by yourself?”

“Because I can—”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to.”

She gave a sharp laugh. “What, are you going to help me, use your wand to make clockwork motions in potions class, or maybe in Defense Against the Dark Arts I could train your wand on you while you try to protect yourself with wandless magic? I must say, it would be a great way to bolster your image, helping the famed Mudblood.” She spat the last word. “Maybe this time we can actually study in the great hall instead of abandoned classrooms with wards.”

His hand on her throat tightened, and he lowered his face to hers, sneering, but she didn’t budge.

“Would you like that, Draco?” She was angry now, and her chin rose. “Would it make you feel better to know you’re doing some good. Poor little rich boy, did you have a difficult time choosing the side that wanted to kill me and people like me?”

He smiled cruelly at her though he felt the tidy walls of his emotions crumbling. 

“You think you’re so clever,” He reached up and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “You think you're the only one who had impossible choices in the war. 

“We all had impossible—”

“To be good is a privilege, Granger! I didn’t have the benefit of the Order behind me when my flesh was carved.” He could still feel the fire in his nerves, just as he'd felt when the dark mark was etched into his skin.

She clenched her teeth. “You had me! I would have helped you!” She raised her voice at the last bit, and he would be amused by how someone so small could have so much to say if he didn’t feel like he was being crushed by her words.

He smiled sadly at her. “You had me too, Granger. I wasn’t the one that left, you were.” 

She left, and he was here. He couldn’t fit into her world, and she left.

She flinched and looked at him with wide, pleading eyes. “I didn’t have a choice, Draco...”

“I know.” He was angry at how broken it sounded. 

Draco let go of her. As he turned away, she grabbed his sleeve, and when he looked back at her, she grabbed his tie and pulled him down, crushing him in a bruising kiss.

He was frozen for several seconds, and seeming to sense his apprehension, Granger started pulling away.

Just one kiss. Maybe one would help him let her go.

After a moment, Draco kissed her back, placing his left hand tentatively on her shoulder while his right caressed her throat, his lips soft but insistent on hers.

The book dropped to the ground, Hogwarts: A History and their own history forgotten as she lifted the hand that was on his sleeve to his jaw, and he found himself leaning into her touch. He gasped into her mouth when she nipped his bottom lip, and he pressed her into the shelf, both hands moving to tangle in her soft curls. 

Suddenly, he felt something wet on his cheeks, and he opened his eyes to see hot tears trailing down her lashes.

He ripped himself away from her, slightly panting and staring at her.

Granger was panting as well, eyes wet and cheeks red and blotchy. He hated those eyes, her blushing face, her stupid curls and the way they tickled his face. He hated her.

He did. He fortified that thought until he felt like he could breathe again.

“Like I said,” His voice sounded rough, and he cleared his throat. “Don’t pretend you can do everything by yourself.”

He left her standing by herself among the old shelves, eyes wide and a forgotten book on the floor.

June 26, 1997

“Draco, you can tell me what’s going on, I—”

“I can’t, Granger. Don’t you understand? I can’t keep you safe if you know everything.” This was the fifth time in as many nights they'd had the same argument. 

She slammed her textbooks on the desk in the abandoned classroom they were currently having a row in. “Don’t you dare treat me like some docile child. You act as if what’s coming with Voldemort has nothing to do with me! Just tell me what you're doing so I can help you!”

“I said no!” His hands were clenched into fists, and he found himself leaning over her. “Why can’t you just leave it be. I don’t want or need your help.”

Granger flinched and stepped back, and her brown eyes widened as if he slapped her.

They stayed in strained silence for several seconds before she picked up her discarded books, threw them in her school bag, hauled her bag over her shoulder, and turned for the door.

Draco stalked towards her and grabbed her arm as she reached for the handle, turning and pressing her against the door, his right hand beside her head. He looked down at her and wondered when she carved so much of herself into him.

“Granger.. I’m trying to protect you,” he said, his breath coming tight in his chest.

“I don’t need your protection," she snapped. "I need you to be honest with me. Or..”

“Or what?” Draco folded his arms and thinned his lips.

Hermione looked him clearly in the eye as she spoke. “Or we’re done. I’m at the end of my broom with you, Draco Malfoy. I've had enough of you lying to me and tell me you’re doing it because you care! I need you to trust me.”

“I do trust you—”

“Then tell me. Tell me what's going on, otherwise you are wasting my time. I’ve had enough of you treating me like a shattered jewel that you need to piece together. I am not broken just because you deem me so”, she said, throwing her hands in the air. 

“You’re full of shit, Granger. Do try to remember that I know you. Every fucking insecure, upset, and even sordid thought I know intimately.”

She glared hotly at him. “Draco, if you don’t tell me—

“I can’t!”

“Why not?” Her hands were clenching into tight fists, and she looked like she wanted to hex him.

“Isn’t it enough that I’m doing this for you? I’m betraying everything every deep-rooted compulsion ingrained in me to be with you!”

Hermione pushed her hair back from her face. “Draco, if you think...”

“I love you, Hermione! What more do you want from me?” he shouted. Draco felt like he was falling into a dark pit. He shouldn’t have said that… he shouldn’t.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth shut, and she looked as taken aback as he'd ever seen her.

She looked.. Scared. Of him. The pain was sharp and cracking in his chest.

He dropped both hands to his side, clenching his fists and pulling away from her.. “So you’re leaving then, is that it? Well, go ahead, no one is stopping you.”

He needed space from her so he turned his back and walked a few steps forward, away from the poison that he had no antivenom for. “Really, Granger, go on,” he said, folding his arms so she wouldn’t seem them shaking.

They stood in silence for several minutes, and he hated that she was as stubborn as he was. He could hear her sigh heavily before she said, “Goodbye, Draco,” and he heard the door click shut behind her.

Draco slumped, blinking away dust from his eyes. She was gone, and he was alone.

Later that night, he continued fixing the cabinet, a dead bird arriving as he cast the spell to Borgin and Burke’s. He occluded all thoughts of bushy hair and righteousness. 

Present - Sept 1998

Granger found him a few days later in the small kitchenette, drinking water. He had been staying in his room to avoid her, but he hadn’t had anything to drink all day.

He couldn’t look at her, so he put his glass down and headed to his room.

“I love you,” she said suddenly. She was fidgeting with her fingernails.

His eyes snapped to hers. He couldn’t—

The air was stale; he couldn’t breathe. 

He couldn’t—he wanted to rip out his heart and shake it until it made sense. Until his heart could explain the strange thrum only she could induce.

Before he knew what he was doing, he stalked across the room and pushed her harshly into the back of the couch, eyes glinting in warning. Her eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare say those words to me, Granger.” He knew that he was being too rough, but he couldn't stop. "You mean nothing to me—nothing. So fuck off.” 

She ignored him and grabbed both sides of his face, inches from hers. “Just talk to me. If you’re angry, then say you’re angry!” Her eyes burned with passion, and he felt the flicker of it on his skin.

He ripped his face away from her, but her hands moved to his chest instead, gripping the buttons of his shirt and dragging him close.

He needed to untangle himself from her and her words, but she was keeping a death grip on his shirt.

“You—” She cut herself off with a shaky breath. “You always do this. Anytime I get close to you, you push me away.”

He tried moving away from her, but she grabbed his right shoulder and turned him back to her forcefully. He thought for a second she was going to kiss him, but instead of her lips, he found the front side of her knuckles hitting his face. The surprise of the punch caught him off guard, and he toppled to the floor, hitting the back of the couch, carrying Hermione with him. Falling didn’t deter her however, and she kept punching and slapping him across his face and body.

He tried to grab hold of her wrists, but her fists blocked his vision.

“Granger, stop! Fucking stop!”

“Always make me so angry... Evil fucking bastard...” She started beating his chest. “You think I wanted to leave? You think I had... Choices, choices...! You think I chose to obliviate my parents, or that I wanted to go trudge all over the countryside with Harry and Ron! You think I wanted to watch you see me get tortured... Bastard.” She was openly weeping now.

He felt a weight settle in him, as if someone wrapped his ribs with her words and squeezed. 

A thick silence settled between them as he stared at her.

He sat still, his hands planted at his side and her fists crumpling the front of his shirt as she cried and cried, feeling frozen in that moment of grief. Frozen, like he was at the Manor when she was bleeding on the marble, her flesh carved crudely. 

She didn’t want to leave him? 

She—

“I love you. Her voice was heavy and devastated. “I love you so much it feels as if I’m breaking inside. I thought love was supposed to be light and freeing. But loving you hurts. It feels as if there’s a bird beating itself inside of me trying to free itself."

“Hermione..”

“I didn’t choose to love you...” Tears were pouring down her face, a torrential shatter of water and salt.

“And you think I did?” he said, his voice ragged.

She gave him a sad smile, but he took it inside himself anyway.

She placed her forehead on his, and their eyes met, her voice shaking as she spoke. “I didn’t leave you. I gave you up.”

He grasped her chin, pushing her back and forcing her to look at him. There were a million things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to scream at her for not understanding her worth, for doing everything for others and nothing for herself. For leaving, for staying with Potter instead of saving herself. For looking him in the eye while she writhed on his floor, begging him with her eyes not to do anything.

He hated her, or at least he wanted to. He so desperately wanted to.

But as he looked at those sad eyes staring back at him, at what they had given up to see the war end, he couldn’t hate her. Not with the way she was looking at him like someone that mattered. He thinks now he was a fool to not realize she had always looked at him this way.

“I know,” he said, his shoulders dropping.

“You know?” She sniffed, and scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes.

“I know.” He took her face into his hands, wiping her tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, and leaned his head forward.

He kissed her. 

He expected her to push him away, to tell him to bugger off and not kiss her when they were still fighting.

She was Hermione Granger, so he shouldn’t have been all that surprised when she laced her fingers in his hair and pressed herself closer to him, kissing him back.

Draco let out a pained sigh when she nipped his lip, but she apparently didn’t care that he was bleeding and instead kissed him more desperately.

She was sweet fire, and he met the pain with vigour.

He ripped away from her mouth and placed kisses across her jaw and down the slim line of her throat. Hermione moaned, reaching for his shirt and unbuttoning it. Impatient, she ripped his shirt open and bared his chest to her.

“God, Granger.” He exhaled raggedly.

She hummed, a smile tilting her lips up. “You’re obscenely wealthy. You can buy another shirt.”

Hermione trailed her small hands everywhere she could touch him while she kissed down his neck. She'd always been tentative in sixth year, but now she was clinging to him with a possessiveness that made his heart pound.

He was so familiar with her hands, when she slapped him in third year, when she reached for his tie the first time they kissed in an empty classroom, when they trembled as a reminder of his aunt, or the first time they held him close in a lonely bathroom. Those hands… Draco could spend his lifetime lost in their touch.

Hermione shifted in Draco’s lap so she was straddling him, her hot mouth moving down his neck and nibbling at spots which made him bite back a moan. 

Journeying to the spot between his neck and collarbone she bit his neck, hard. 

He winced, his hand clapping against the spot over the mark. “Jesus, Granger.” He could feel his eyebrows fly up.

She flushed. “Sorry. I just… I missed you.” She pulled him back to her mouth, still desperate and forceful. She nipped his lip and stroked his tongue, and it wasn’t the gentle caress he remembered. It was something more demanding and harsh as she tangled them together, and sucked.

She was never this aggressive before. Before he could question it further, she was pushing his shirt off his shoulders and kissing him again while she went to his belt buckle. His hips bucked against her, jostling her a bit, and he grasped both her hips.

Hermione unbuckled his belt, opened the fly and reached into his trousers, grasping his length.

“Hermione” he growled. He tightened his hold on her hips, clutching desperately. He was worried about bruising her, but he didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t want her to leave again. 

He looked up from watching her hand to see her staring at him, and he choked. Her eyes darkened as a blush spread down her neck. She pumped him a few times before he ripped her hand off him and pounced on her, her back now on the plush carpet.

She giggled and then moaned his name when he ripped the buttons of her school shirt, slipped it off her shoulders, and lifted her white bra above her breasts, dragging his thumb across one nipple while he bent his head and rolled his tongue around the other. Hermione shuddered and pressed her chest into him.

He looked up at her and took in her flushed cheeks, her fingers tightly grasping his hair.

He was drunk with her. 

“Draco, please.” She whimpered, rubbing her thighs together. She took her hands out of his hair and snaked them in between their bodies, grasping the waistline of his trousers and pushing them down his hips.

He jerked against her hands and let out a ragged breath when she pushed her knickers to the side and tried aligning herself with him.

The cloud in his mind cleared enough for him to realise that she was going too fast. Far be it from him to decide how they were going to have sex, but he knew she wasn’t like this. Something else was wrong.

Draco gently pulled her hands away and sat back to stare at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

Hermione froze and stared at him. Apparently he was staring at her too long because she sat up, one hand crossed protectively against her chest while the other reached for her discarded shirt.

“Granger, stop.” He took both of her wrists and tugged her to him. She tried pulling away, but he caught her face with both hands. 

“Are you—” He paused. “Do you not want this? Why are you rushing?”

“No! I mean, yes, I do.” She grabbed his arms and tilted her head down. “I just… I want this to work. I want us to work. And I don’t—” Her voice broke. “I don’t think I can handle it if it doesn’t.” 

“Hermione…” and he could feel her shiver against his chest as he said her name. “I want this. I want you. I need you to trust me. You don’t need to prove anything to me.”

She gave him a tremulous smile, and he leaned into her touch when she cupped his jaw. 

“You deserve better.” he said.

Granger snorted. “You’re so clichéd it wounds me.”

He smiled. “Comes with the territory of being with me I’m afraid.” He kissed both checks, then her nose, then her forehead. “You’re not the only insufferable one.”

Granger was about to open her mouth, probably to yell at him, so he kissed her lightly and then deepened it as he pushed her back down, kissing down her chest while his fingers crawled featherlight touches against her ribs, leaving goosebumps in his wake.

Hermione raked her nails down his back, causing him to groan against her skin and push his hips into hers. He couldn’t stop touching her, as if she was going to disappear behind a door again.

He was starved for her. 

He took his free hand and traced teasing circles on the softness of her thighs, before sitting on his heels while he tugged her skirt down, revealing white knickers. He traced soft lines over the fabric, teasing her until she whimpered and tugged him down to kiss her again.

“Still wearing the same knickers, Granger?” He smiled against her lips.

“Ugh Draco, shut up!” Hermione was squirming, angling her hips closer to his hand.

He smirked and she glared at him, her hair wild and eyes dark. He relented, unable to deny her, and parted the offending material and thumbed her clit while he slid a finger slowly inside of her. 

She gasped. “Oh. I’m...ah.”

He growled at how wet she was, “Did it make you wet, assaulting me?”

She burst out laughing. “Well, as much as I love your sulking, you look better with a few scratches.” She traced a warm hand against his check, her fingers brushing his left cheekbone where he felt the sting of a cut.

He slid a second finger inside of her to shut her up, and she moved her hand from his face to grip the top of his shoulders. He felt her tighten even more around him.

“Draco, please.” Hermione was staring up at him, eyes hazy with lust but with a tint of something he didn’t know. He just knew it burned him.

Needing no more prompting, Draco slid her knickers down her legs while she removed her bra, and slid off his own trousers. He grabbed the back of her thighs and pulled her to him, and she squealed. Hitching her legs up around his hips, he gripped her left hip and aligned himself. She was lovely, and his. When he sunk into her he was trembling, but so was she. She grabbed the back of his neck and brought him down to her.

He kissed her desperately, and she kissed him back in a way that made his heart clench. He would do anything to live forever in this moment.

“Draco.” She whispered against his lips. This girl was trying to kill him. They were both clinging to each other, Hermione wrapping her arms around his shoulders until he felt like he was being crushed while his left hand dug bruises into her skin. 

When she was gasping for breath, he brought his lips to her neck, mouth hot and trailing over her shoulders and across her collarbones. Draco’s right hand sunk into Hermione’s curls and gripped it, bringing her lips to his again and angling her head the way he wanted it.

He looked at her again, and he let out a shaky breath as she met his gaze. He wanted to imprint himself on her bones, so that she would never forget him. She gasped as she looked at him and held tighter, leaving broken marks on his back with her nails. 

His hips sped up, and she matched each thrust with her own while she kissed down his neck, nipping at the spot below his ear that ripped out a strangled moan from him. Her kisses were full of frantic and needy want, and he met and matched them. 

They had sex before, but this felt different, as if their souls were meeting and entwining. Hermione buried her face in Draco’s neck as her legs tightened against his waist.

He wanted to see her come apart. She'd never want to leave him. He removed his hand from her hair and palmed her cheek, bringing their faces together. She was panting and her eyes tightly closed. He wouldn't let her deny this. 

“Look at me,” he said hoarsely.

She opened her eyes, glossy with need. For him. He would likely have an emotional breakdown if she wasn’t currently meeting his hips and raking her nails down his back.

“Fuck— you feel so good.”

He grabbed hold of her wrists and interlocked their fingers, pulling her arms up and pinning her against him as he moved quicker.

“Ah, Draco..”

“Hermione.” He panted harshly into her neck, holding on tightly.

This position brought them impossibly closer, and he felt Hermione shivering violently. She squirmed underneath him, and his fingers tightened.

“Draco I’m—”

“Fuck—”

The tell-tale flutter of her walls made his hips falter their steady pace, and as she broke apart under him, he followed her shortly after as he buried his face into her neck and came with a loud groan.

Draco lifted his face and looked into her eyes, studying her. Wondering if she’d take it back. Instead he found her panting too, smiling softly for him, that same brilliant smile that’s always made him weak for her. For far longer than he cared to admit. He reached up and brushed an errant curl from her forehead, and kissed the furrow between her brows.

He swallowed. "I—please. Please stay."

Her hair is down and wild and completely Hermione, and his heart was in his throat.

She smiled, and it was bright enough to clear rain clouds. "Malfoy, haven't you learned by now that you can't chase me off?"

It should have hurt him to look at her. But it was her and she was his, and he’d consume as much of her as she’d allow.

June 30th, 1999

Draco found Granger in front of the Great Hall. She was hugging Potter and the she-Weasley, chattering about the graduation party at Hogsmeade set for later that night. Potter saw him first and gave him an awkward smile while the ginger smirked at him. Draco tried smiling back, but judging by their aggrieved faces, he imagined it came out more as a pained grimace.

He walked up to them, and after an awkward greeting, Weasley dragged Potter away to walk with Lovegood and Longbottom out the doors.

Hermione reached for him, flattening her palms against his chest. He looked down at her, feeling a slight pressure on the back of his neck.

“You’re too short,” he said, reaching for a curl and twisting it around his finger. 

“Sorry. Some of my height was added to your chin when you were born,” she said, smiling at him.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “My chin is not big,” and he tugged at the curl before letting go.

“No, but it’s pointy. It could kill someone if you’re not careful.”

He huffed, leaned down, and kissed her. She tried to meet halfway into the kiss, but he knew he'd have to bend further for her. He circled his arms around her waist instead, lifting her and devouring her.

She smiled into the kiss. “We made it to graduation.”

He looked back at her, still holding her up. “Honestly, Granger, I can’t say I’m going to miss seeing you in these halls.”

“Insufferable know-it-all and all that,” she said, still smiling.

“You should get checked for Carpal Tunnel from raising your hand so much in class.”

“I should. Now that you mention it, my doctor’s office is near a beauty boutique. You can come with me and buy more hair gel while you wait.”

Draco breathed a laugh but said nothing as he pressed his lips softly to hers and then more insistently, making sure to hit her jaw with his chin on his way to her neck. "That sounds"—impossible, fantastic, brilliant— "good."


End file.
